IPL 2024: Virat Kohli reflects on career-altering game, two most crushing heartbreaks of his cricketing journey

Talismanic India batter Virat Kohli opened up on two figures who helped him during his initial career and recalled the two heartbreaks he experienced during his peak of batting form back in 2016Virat representing Royal Challengers Bengaluru RCB in IPL 2024 will be in action against Chennai Super Kings CSK on Saturday at Bengaluru With RCB at seventh place with six wins seven losses and 12 points and CSK in the fourth place with seven wins six losses and 14 points this match is a knockout match that will decide which team gets to join Kolkata Knight Riders KKR Rajasthan Royals RR Sunrisers Hyderabad SRH in the IPL 2024 playoffsSpeaking to JioCinema along with former cricketer Suresh Raina Virat revealed that back in 2008 during the Emerging Players tournament in Australia the thenchief selector Dilip Vengasarkar and Raina pushed his name for the national side That tournament used to hold a lot of value back then since a lot of great talent would use that as a platform for getting a regular national spot It was held from 20052011During that tournament Virat failed in a few initial games while batting in the middle order under the leadership of Subramaniam Badrinath and was benched When Raina joined the tournament midway as a captain he asked the coach Pravin Amre why he was not playing and Virat was promoted to the opening spot replacing Ajinkya Rahane on the insistence of RainaThat match happened against New Zealand when he played as an opener Dilip was our selector One thing is that you have heard about someone the other is that you have seen someone That makes an different impact You see someone play absorb pressure etc He saw me opening I made 120 That is when he Dilip decided that more chances have to be given to me I am very thankful to him I told him before as well that he Raina pushed my name said KohliAlso ReadTop sports stories of the week Chhetris retirement Chopra wins gold at home RCBs fifth consecutive winIn that tournament Virat played six games and scored 206 runs at an average of 4120 with a century and a fifty His best score was 120That match would go on to change Virats fortunes and he would make his international debut in August 2008 against Sri Lanka After being in and out of the team due to the presence of seniors it was the Emerging Players 2009 tournament that helped him establish himself as a permanent player for India India won that tournament and Virat emerged as a topscorer with 405 runs in nine games at an average of 5062 with two centuries and two fifties His best score was 115Speaking on one of his careers biggest heartbreaks he revealed that not being able to win the 2016 ICC T20 World Cup and the IPL for his side was heartbreaking and the loss in the T20 WC drained him so much that he could not get out of his roomThere have been just two heartbreaks in my career and both were in 2016 One was the T20 World Cup I was in a space where I thought that I could do anything The noballs and everything that took me a lot of time to get over I was literally drained and didnt get out of my room the next day said ViratThen when we lost the IPL final here M Chinnaswamy Stadium We felt like that was written in the stars from how we made it to the final Also the final was at our home ground We were chasing 200odd runs and were over 100 runs in nine overs with no loss When AB de Villiers got out we needed 68 off 42 balls with eight wickets in hand Its like how did we lose that game he concluded2016 was Virats peak at batting In 37 international matches Virat scored 2595 runs at an average of 8650 with seven centuries and 13 fifties In 15 T20Is Virat scored 641 runs at an average of 10683 and a strike rate of over 140 with seven fifties His best score was 90Virat was also the topscorer in the ICC T20 World Cup and won the Player of the Tournament title In five matches he has scored 273 runs at an average of 13650 and a strike rate of over 146 with three halfcenturies But still he could not prevent Indias loss to West Indies in the semifinalIn the IPL 2016 as well Virat emerged as the highest runscorer and set the record for most runs in a single edition He scored 973 runs at an average of 8108 in 16 games with four centuries and seven fifties But RCB lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final by eight runsWith agency inputs